When the Lions blared music — “Higher Ground” by TNGHT and “Planet Rock” by Afrika Bambaataa and Soulsonic Force — at Monday’s practice much thought went into both the music selection and the decision to turn up the volume in the first place.

Those tunes aren’t on Caldwell’s iPod, he gives players the opportunity to suggest playlists with the requirement that the lyrics are clean.

“Everybody used to get bored with the crowd noise that was a bunch of yelling and screaming and all that kind of stuff and you couldn’t make hide nor hare of it,’’ Caldwell said. “It created distraction for you and we were trying to do the same with the music. One day in here we had a Motown session.’’

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The idea is to simulate crowd noise so they can’t hear on the practice field and have to communicate louder with one another. They’ll hit the road for the first time in the preseason at Oakland on Friday.

“That was sweet wasn’t it? Did you Shazam that? The first one was my song,’’ center Dominic Raiola said. “It puts a little extra pep in your step, I guess. I don’t know, dealing with the noise concentrating, it’s fun. At the same time you’re getting work done, but it’s a fun atmosphere.’’

It was evident he wasn’t the only one with a “pep in his step”, the music seemed to invigorate the indoor practice.

Caldwell said he never thought about using music to lighten the mood.

“Ii don’t really care if the mood is light to be honest with you,’’ Caldwell said. “I’m more interested in results, to get our guys ready. I don’t think they hired me to be a social director in that sense.’’

He did agree that the players were in good spirits but he said that’s a result of the guys enjoying being around each other.

“That’s what you’re sensing, you sense the mood is light because they’re galvanizing, they’re gravitating toward one another,’’ Caldwell said. “It’s not anything that’s orchestrated, its not anything that I’m doing, it’s them.

“As you can see they enjoy one another, they enjoy what they’re doing, they’re optimistic about where they are. They have a good feel about them that’s the thing that you’re sensing hopefully that keeps going,’’ Caldwell added.

Maybe the new coach isn’t the social director, but he is putting them players in the position to be optimistic and to have that certain pep in their step.

“When you have good morale you can accomplish anything and at this stage of the game these guys have great morale,’’ Caldwell said. “Here’s the real key whether or not we can have great morale when things get tough.’’

Bingo. That is the clincher. That can be the difference between a 7-9 season and a 10-6 trip-to-the-playoffs season.

The coach quoted author Wallace Stegner in saying that “resilience after disappointment” is the real key. In the NFL, disappointment can happen at any time.

“It’s always around the corner, the next day , the next minute,’’ Caldwell said. “I think these guys have shown that they’ve got the zest and zeal to get that done. It will be interesting to see what happens when things get tough.’’